CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Dawn found Abe and his little band doing what they had always done best: moving across some barren wasteland on another epic crusade to save the Mudokon race from Glukkon enslavement. Except that, with the liberation of all the Glukkon establishments in the area, they were now able to use a few Elums as mounts, and were now crossing the beautiful terrain much faster than they would have done on foot.
Abe tried to breathe through his stitched-up lips as much as he could; the smell the Elums produced was totally appalling, to say the least. They were excellent at transporting the band of Mudokons around, but the smell was almost as bad as being shot at by BigBro Sligs.
As they rode, he told them what he had accomplished with the MeechCo mission – how he had infiltrated, set the bombs, and then had been forced to escape with the Mudokon slaves still in Fragg’s possession due to Fragg’s anti-possession settings in his video cameras. He continued the story all the way up to his return to the village.
He kept a frown on his face the whole way. The loss of Big Face was still fresh enough to cause him pain.
Alf wiped at his eyes with his enormous hands. “I…I never thought I’d hear the day…when Big Face died.”
“Neither did I,” Abe growled. “I just thought he’d live on forever…but then, no one can.”
“So neither will this Lord Fragg when we catch up to him,” Ferg said. “I’ve got a few things to say to him.”
Abe laughed coldly. “All I’ve got to say to him is in the barrel of this Snuzi pistol.”
He kept his mouth shut as they walked across the Mudokon territory. With the continual work of the Mudokons through the Storm Circles, the territory had sprouted up with beautiful green plants and was full of natural wildlife, including Elums, Paramites, Scrabs, Slurgs, Slegs, Fleeches, and yet other creatures that could either be mild-tempered and cute or mean and dangerous.
He knew the Sligs had to be this way. Fragg would doubtlessly be bringing his slaves to Mantin City to keep them safe from Abe’s prying fingers and chanting – because, outside of the now-destroyed MeechCo, there would be no video camera settings that would kill all the slaves. It would be safe for him to chant…at least, he hoped so.
Abe got so wrapped up in thinking that he forgot to breathe through his mouth, and he accidentally breathed in through his nose, and the scent of Elum poured in through his nasal glands. Immediately he felt a strong desire to puke over the side of his mount, but since Alf and Lowrn were flanking him within armreach, he didn’t think puking on them would boost their relationship much.
Alf suddenly posed the question he’d been dreading the whole journey: “How are we gonna free all the slaves?”
Abe gritted his teeth. “I don’t know.”
“We could…uh…cause a distraction,” Ferg said. “We lure some Sligs away, while you possess some others and get them all separated…maybe one of us could help the slaves get out.”
“Maybe.” Abe shook his head. “But Fragg has a lot of Sligs guarding his line. And he went to Mantin City by airship, so he got there before all the others did. He might have picked up some extra.”
Alf laughed. “Hey, we’re heroes! We can deal with it!”
“Maybe,” Abe said again. “But don’t count on it.”
“Optimism is good for things!” Grunn said. “If we’re all down in the dirt about it, we’re never going to get anything done.”
Abe decided to set his mind to planning a way to bust the slaves free. It was a dilemma he was going to have to figure out himself, because – quite frankly – Alf and the others weren’t going to be much help in that area. They just provided him with extra hands and feet and heads.
He scratched at his chin, dividing his mind between planning and breathing through his mouth to avoid tasting the foul Elum stench. Fragg and his Slig minions couldn’t be invincible…no one was invincible. Abe had managed to free all the other slaves he had set his mind to breaking free, so why did this have to be different?
A plan popped into his mind all of a sudden, and he grinned at the idea. He had this Snuzi pistol, after all.
Yeah. Yeah, that would work nicely.
He was still congratulating himself on his master planning when they heard the gunshots.
The Mudokons immediately whirled to face the east. Abe gritted his teeth; gunshots meant trouble, and trouble wasn’t something they wanted to run into before it was time to deal with it.
“Come on!” he said, turning his Elum. “Let’s go check it out.”
He spurred his not-so-trusty and oh-so-smelly steed toward the sound. He heard his friends confer for about ten seconds before riding after him, all trying – and failing – to keep quiet.
Abe hoped it wasn’t Fragg, not this close to him. If it was Fragg, this was a problem. The only way his new plan could be put to use would be if they got to the Slig camp by night, so they couldn’t be seen in this mostly-open terrain.
Still, he had to check it out. That was what he did, after all.
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